Long ago, in the secluded and mysterious kingdom of Scotland in the northern part of the island of Great Britain, the winter goddess-queen Beira ruled the frozen land. She was a fierce and cruel goddess, hundreds of years old and prone to great mood changes which would alter the landscape of the kingdom. The goddess-queen was a terrible sight. She was missing one of her eyes, her skin was a dark shade of emerald, and her teeth were jagged and of the most vibrant shade of scarlet. Long, tangled hair, white as the winter's snow, flowed behind her. The subjects of the Scottish kingdom lived in fear of her, since she had a habit of turning water into land and vice versa.

As her moods fluctuated, Beira commanded the strong northern winds to take aim at Scotland and thus she drove incredible winter storms to halt harvests. The people of the kingdom came to resent her every year when the grounds thawed and her power waned, and they professed their allegiances to the goddess-queen of spring, Brighde, for she brought beautiful days, plentiful food, and warmth to the land. This infuriated Beira; she tried with all her might to prolong her rule over the kingdom by creating devastating blizzards and using her staff to freeze the ground, but inevitably Brighde took her rightful place as the symbol of rebirth and renewal as Beira took her leave.

On the final night of her reign over the Scottish kingdom, Beira journeyed to the Isle of Skye to drink from the Well of Youth. The old goddess-queen had to take incredible care to ensure that she was the first to approach the well - if any sound was made in its presence, old Beira would turn to ash! As dawn approached, enchanted water bubbled from the well, and Beira drank to her heart's content. Within seconds, the crags and wrinkles in her withered old face began to fade away, and when she returned to her kingdom she was the second most beautiful maiden - just behind the goddess-queen Brighde.

Yet as the spring and summer wore on, Beira's age returned to her face. The marks of age inevitably showed her true identity and character, and the subjects of the kingdom of Scotland knew that her reign of terror was imminent. True to their fears, once the reign of Beira began anew, she spent her days smashing the landscape with her magic hammer - creating high, vast mountains to use as stepping stones throughout the kingdom.

In these mountains lay the village of Inverness-shire, where the goddess-queen kept a well for her personal use, guarded by the maid-hag Nessa. Under no circumstances was the lid of the well to be removed during the time between dusk and dawn. One evening, Nessa was distracted by her other duties and unable to cover the well in time. When she returned to Inverness-shire a short while later, she was shocked to see the village flooded from the well's overflowing water. Beira, furious with the maid-hag, scolded her for not completing her responsibilities. With this, Nessa was transformed into a river by the goddess-queen, and both the lake and the river bear her name today: Loch Ness and the River Ness.

These examples of Beira's cruelty and the fear that she instills in the villagers explain why the Scottish hold such contempt for the changing of the season to winter. The coming of spring, however, is a festive occasion - as you'll find out in the next story...


Author's Note:
The story of Beira is incredibly long and mixes in with the other stories that I want to use for my storybook. I've tried to condense this as much as I possibly can while still leaving the really interesting parts of the story (such as the formation of Loch Ness) while cutting out some of the incredibly wordy descriptions of Beira. I tried the best that I could to convey the fear and disgust that people had for Beira when she first appears, and the regard that they hold for Brighde when she shows up to relieve Beira of her duties. A lot of the story gets monotonous and very hard to read, to be honest, so I wanted to make it a little bit more modern and interesting. There really aren't too many places to find good stories (in English, anyway) on Scottish folklore; it's slightly depressing. Yet the information that I did end up finding about Beira had different variations on her story: in some folklore, when Beira drinks from the Well of Youth, she actually becomes Brighde. It's a fascinating story and I would recommend reading it if you ever have a couple of hours of free time.



Bibliography:

"Beira, Queen of Winter" by Donald Alexander Mackenzie, from Wonder Tales from Scottish Myth and Legend (1917.)
Web Source: Sacred Texts.

Introduction | Beira | Brighde | A'Cailleach | Samhainn